CHAPTER 2

San Francisco, California

“Thank you so much. My family will always remember you. My child is safe, in my arms, safe,” Heather Ryan said, her voice trailing off, her cheeks flushed from crying, her tired eyes gazing out the picture window of her home at the distant Pacific surf.

Sarah Rider touched Heather’s shoulder, firmly reassuring her that she and her child were now beyond the reach of the kidnapper. She promised that her friend, District Attorney Cortez, would slam the steel doors shut on the kidnapper’s future, with no time off for good behavior.

David, Heather’s husband, pulled Sarah aside and shook her hand, then embraced her, his eyes swelling with tears.

“Your gifts must give you great consolation,” he said.

“Sometimes.”

Sarah’s cell phone rang. She listened … felt herself losing focus.

“Okay, I’ll be right there. I’m sorry. I have to leave. Something’s wrong. Good luck to both of you. If you need anything further, don’t hesitate to call the department. Ask for Blythe.”

Waving goodbye, she felt something grip her heart.



⎕



For a brief moment, she was confused. Then her senses cleared, and she jammed her car’s stick shift into second gear, roaring toward the intersection of Van Ness and Lombard, sensing death.

Faraway a single foghorn sounded, a faint caution lost quickly in the San Francisco rush of early evening traffic. The drifting gray-white fog descended, vapor-like, into the city streets, leaving a wet chill in the Pacific air.

⎕

Thirty-five year old Sarah Rider, a San Francisco police officer, forensic psychologist and ancient history buff, looked at her dead partner. She leaned down and took Sutton’s hand for the last time, holding it, affectionately touching it with her other hand. Her eyes teared.

“A simple robbery for change turns into a damn nightmare. I know how close the two of you were,” Captain Jenks said sadly.

“I had a feeling last—”

“What’s that in his hand?” Jenks asked, pointing with his index finger.

Sarah bent over and slowly unfolded each finger from a kind of death grip.

“It’s a phone number,” she whispered, walking away from Jenks, thinking….

Sarah called the long distance number on her cell phone. No one answered. She sensed that the number was important, but not right now.

She also sensed, again, as she had for months, something threatening coming – from somewhere. She then walked slowly back to Captain Jenks, her five-foot seven-inch frame taut with frustration. She looked at him with the intensity of a cat.

“We need to talk. Meet me at the beach. You know where, by the Cliff House. Tonight, at seven.”



⎕



The Cliff House, located where Geary merges with Point Lobos at 39th Avenue, was Sarah’s favorite place to decompress. She would sit for hours looking at the ocean and the Marin County headlands, walking, after a meal of fresh fish and white wine, on the beach where land, sky and ocean met. She was drawn to the ocean water, to its sound, to its calming, life-sustaining gifts, to its magnificent and subtle blues.

Evening was rising. Seagulls walked the beach like soldiers. Hints of starlight spread across the darkening sky of scattered clouds. The cool salt air of San Francisco was riding on a western wind, and rolling waves crashed against a debris-strewn shore.

Walking on the beach, the wet sand between Sarah’s toes calmed her. She waited for Jenks, waited for a voice within to say, You’re fine, but she started to cry, feeling the deep pain of her loss. A ten-year partner gone. A world of great memories fading....

Sarah dropped to her knees, then fell on the sand with her face up to the dark, turbulent sky, letting the cool ocean air sweep over her body.

Disturbing dreams. Vague, uncertain feelings. Images of unknown places. They all had visited her over the last three months. In processing these images and feelings, Sarah noticed a common thread – a sense that she was about to start a journey, east, toward ancient beginnings and mysteries.

Her mother had told her, in her final days, in a failing whisper, that each soul has a dangerous journey to take toward its ultimate purpose in a lifetime.

Sarah relaxed on the beach and took an inner journey:

Into the natural world where she could smell the pines, plants and leaves. She could see shafts of golden sunlight hit the floor of the green and rocky earth. High up, she could see an eagle tilting and swooping down toward a distant river, then up toward a towering mountain. The magic sounds of nature engulfed her like a symphony….

Her physical body relaxed. Her breathing fell almost silent. She could feel inner balance returning. She lingered in a state of half consciousness. Then she turned over and instinctively drew, using her index finger, a square maze of lines in the sand, reminding herself how she did this kind of activity with her mother when they visited the beach on afternoons filled with light and wind.

Her mother often said that life was like lines drawn in the sand –

Today’s reality washed away with the tides of change.

“Are you all right?” Jenks asked, leaning down, gently touching her shoulder.

“I’m fine.” She looked up, refocusing her eyes. “Listen, I need a strong partner, someone I can trust,” she said, standing up.

“No one wants to work with you. You know. You’re unnerving.”

“I understand. Then I want a Wild Card. You have the connections.”

“A Wild Card? No way. They’re mainly international. Agency stuff – off the radar screen. They don’t usually work domestic. Can’t be done. Forget it!”

Sarah brushed her shoulder-length, auburn-colored hair away from her penetrating green eyes and took a quick look at the dark night-clouds storming toward the beach, moving thunderheads threatening the land.

The air turned cold. In her ear, she heard a far sound….

As she walked away from Jenks, she looked back and yelled, “Then forget the Wild Card and assign me Cutter.”